Here’s why Netflix streaming quality has nosedived over the past few months

Have your Netflix streams been much more laggy or choppy in recent months? If so then you’re not alone. As The Wall Street Journal shows, Netflix streaming quality has tanked at multiple major ISPs since this past October and much of it stems from behind-the-scenes wrangling over who will pick up the tab for all the added traffic demand Netflix’s services are generating.

According to one of the Journal’s sources, “within the past four to six months, Netflix traffic through Cogent’s connections to one major broadband provider has at least quadrupled” in good part because Netflix has expanded its Super HD streaming service to all of its customers. This has led ISPs to demand some extra cash from Netflix that will be used to help ISPs speed up their networks to meet traffic demand. Netflix, meanwhile, “wants broadband companies to hook up to its new video-distribution network without paying them fees for carrying its traffic,” the Journal writes.

What this really boils down to, explains Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin, is a dispute over peering. Most of the time, ISPs and bandwidth providers such as Cogent Communications have peering agreements to swap traffic with one another without any additional charge. However, ISPs apparently think the rise of video streaming over their networks has upset the balance that peering agreements have traditionally struck which is why they’re trying to change things up.

“When one party’s getting all the benefit and the other’s carrying all the cost, issues will arise,” Verizon head of public policy Craig Silliman tells the Journal.